One best-selling author had the clever idea of giving back to his readers – a book club at a time
John Shors is the kind of author who wants to give back. It is his belief that when someone buys one of his books he ought to do something nice for them in return, so when the paperback version of his bestselling novel Beneath a Marble Sky was published, he put a letter in the back that invited book clubs to invite him to their events. Shortly thereafter, Shors was pleasantly surprised to get asked to join a couple of book clubs a week.
Readers were, and continue to be, amazed that an author would provide his personal email address to invite them to join him in a book discussion, and were deeply touched by the gesture. Needless to say, word travels, and within a few months of launching his program, Shors was speaking with up to ten book clubs a day. Such exposure greatly increased the sales of Beneath a Marble Sky, which is now an international bestseller and is available in twenty-five languages.
To date, Shors says he has spoken with about 2,500 book clubs – most certainly a record in the publishing industry – and the feedback is that everyone is thrilled to get an opportunity to actually chat one-on-one with the author of a book they have read. A modest man, Shors feels he is just trying to do a tiny part in making reading fun again on a group level.
John Shors lived for several years in Kyoto, Japan where he taught English and later traveled throughout Asia. His best-selling novels, Beneath a Marble Sky, Beside a Burning Sea, Dragon House, and his soon-to-be released, The Wishing Trees, are all set in Asia. He continues to talk with several book clubs a night, these days chatting about all of his books. His program has been so successful that it has inspired countless other authors to create similar platforms. Please check out this intriguing author at www.johnshors.com.
